2017-01-02

Superbowl LI Projection, Week 17, Final

New England over Dallas

There are always a lot of crazy scenarios that could play out toward the end of the season, but usually none do. This year is almost completely straightforward. In no case did a team miss the playoffs while a team with a lesser record made it this year. 9-7 was the magic cutoff record, with 2 9-7 teams making it, and the other 10 all better than that. Three 9-7 teams missed the playoffs, and again, the other 17 teams that missed the playoffs were worse than that. As usual, though, there are some strong wildcards and weak division winners that belie their seeds. Oakland is a strong #5, or would be with their starting QB. Houston is a very weak division winner, with a lower record than both AFC wildcard teams. In the NFC, the Giants have been sneakily good, finishing with 11 wins, more than 2 division winners. The strength numbers show they are seeded just about correctly though, better than just 3 other playoff teams.

Speaking of strength, Los Angeles managed to catch Cleveland and plop themselves at the bottom of the chart. Cleveland does have the worst point differential, but they scored and allowed many more points than LA, so the ratio works out in Cleveland's favor. The formula used for strength is:

pf^n

--------------

pf^n + pa^n

Where n varies based on how many points are scored per game league wide. For sorting purposes, though, a shortcut of pf/pa could be used, and LA was worst in that regard, scoring less than 57% as many points as their opponents, while Cleveland was a bit over 58%. Either way, both teams are quite bad, but the point is that the Rams got a bit lucky compared to how I'd expect them to do on average, since they won a full 25% of their games, but they should have won about 15.6%, or about 2.5 games. Cleveland should have won closer to 3 games, so they were a bit unlucky this year.

Back to the teams on top, I've got New England with a full 45% chance of winning the Super Bowl. That's a huge number going into the playoffs. Now for the Wildcard Saturday games, I'll make my rooting interests known, as is now tradition.

Oakland at Houston:
On paper, Oakland is the better team, but as I mentioned above, they're down a QB. I think Houston's probably more likely to actually win this, but I'll be rooting for Oakland.

Detroit at Seattle:
Detroit needs a few more good years before they'll feel like a legitimate NFL champion, so I'm going to root for Seattle, and my fellow Wilson, Russell.

TEAM

Record

Strength

Div

Plyff

WC

Qtr

Semi

Champ

NE

14-2

0.845

++

++

++

84.78

63.74

45.72

DAL

13-3

0.722

++

++

++

68.76

38.61

16.40

ATL

11-5

0.701

++

++

++

59.16

31.53

12.67

KC

12-4

0.661

++

++

++

56.38

18.22

8.74

PIT

11-5

0.645

++

++

67.54

32.51

10.03

4.62

SEA

10-5-1

0.640

++

++

66.31

28.59

13.22

4.53

GB

10-6

0.580

++

++

51.49

18.27

7.38

2.16

OAK

12-4

0.558

-

++

67.18

17.07

5.50

2.06

NYG

11-5

0.565

-

++

48.51

16.53

6.44

1.80

DET

9-7

0.475

-

++

33.69

8.68

2.81

0.61

MIA

10-6

0.466

-

++

32.46

4.47

1.59

0.47

HOU

9-7

0.381

++

++

32.82

4.80

0.92

0.21

ARI

7-8-1

0.606

-

-

-

-

-

-

DEN

9-7

0.585

-

-

-

-

-

-

PHI

7-9

0.577

-

-

-

-

-

-

BAL

8-8

0.549

-

-

-

-

-

-

MIN

8-8

0.547

-

-

-

-

-

-

BUF

7-9

0.540

-

-

-

-

-

-

IND

8-8

0.535

-

-

-

-

-

-

WAS

8-7-1

0.525

-

-

-

-

-

-

NO

7-9

0.524

-

-

-

-

-

-

CIN

6-9-1

0.523

-

-

-

-

-

-

TEN

9-7

0.506

-

-

-

-

-

-

SD

5-11

0.477

-

-

-

-

-

-

TB

9-7

0.469

-

-

-

-

-

-

CAR

6-10

0.436

-

-

-

-

-

-

JAC

3-13

0.335

-

-

-

-

-

-

CHI

3-13

0.255

-

-

-

-

-

-

NYJ

5-11

0.234

-

-

-

-

-

-

SF

2-14

0.211

-

-

-

-

-

-

CLE

1-15

0.167

-

-

-

-

-

-

LA

4-12

0.156

-

-

-

-

-

-

First to 10% chance of Superbowl win: New England (Week 3, Thursday)
First to 20% chance of Superbowl win: New England (Week 8, Sunday)
First to 40% chance of Superbowl win: New England (Week 16, Saturday)

First to 45% chance of Superbowl win: New England (Week 17, Final)

First to 80% chance of Playoffs: New England (Week 3, Thursday)
First to 90% chance of Playoffs: Minnesota (Week 4, Final)
First to 99% chance of Playoffs: New England (Week 8, Sunday)
First to 99.9% chance of Playoffs: Dallas (Week 12, Thursday)
First to 99.999% chance of Playoffs: Dallas (Week 13, Thursday)
First to clinch Playoffs: Dallas (Week 13, Sunday)
First to clinch a First Round Bye: New England (Week 15, Sunday)
First to clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs: Dallas (Week 16, Saturday)

First team eliminated from winning a division: Cleveland, San Francisco (Week 11, Sunday)
First team eliminated from the playoffs: Cleveland (Week 11, Sunday)